THURSDAY, APRIL10, 2003
MOVIES AROUND TOWN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 13
The following reviews and summaries were written by Jayplay film critic Stephen Shupe unless otherwise noted.
LIBERTY HALL
Adaptation Grade: Aam Sandler's mild-mannered businessman in the be the Bob Fosse Broadway hit, but after Chicago is over you may wonder what all the fuss was about. Director Rob Marshall's carbon-copy theatricality ensures you'll have a good time, but for less style over substance, see Björk in the daring Dancer in the Dark.
Contributed art
Charlie Kaufman's Mad Hatter idea to write himself into his own screenplay pays off in spades in Spike Jonze's latest comedic stunner. Nicholas Cage gives a blistering performance as the screenwriter hired to adapt Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, a decidedly non-cinematic book about flowers. Meryl Streep plays Orlean in some of the best sequences in the film, which feature an Oscar-winning Chris Cooper as a greasy horticulturist who journeys through the swamp lands to lift endangered orchids. Charlie's descent from artistic integrity to derivative hell is one of the movies' most memorable unraveling acts in years, and Adaptation's restless originality all but guarantees it cult status.
The Quiet American Grade: A- (Ends today)
Thomas Fowler (Oscar nominee Michael Caine), a British journalist chasing the dragon and other interests in 1952 Saigon, meets Alden Pyle (should-havebeen-nominated Brendan Fraser), an American charmer who falls in love with Fowler's Vietnamese girlfriend. When Fowler investigates a violent political faction, one that's fighting both the communists and the rebels, he finds Pyle waiting for him around every corner. Phillip Noyce's incredibly suspenseful rendering of Graham Greene's novel is the most politically inflammatory American movie in years, one that should provide plenty of fuel to the fire for today's anti-war movement.
SOUTH WIND 12
Agent Cody Banks
Grade: C (Ends today)
Malcom in the Middle's Frankie Muniz makes the leap to the big screen with this unexceptional kid adventure. Muniz plays a typical Seattle teen with girl issues who's secretly a CIA super-agent. I loved this movie the first time when it was called Spy Kids and directed by Robert Rodriguez, who makes movies with eye-popping visuals and plenty of conceptual wit. Apart from a few laughs and some snappy casting, Agent Cody Banks is dull to look at with a silly robot plot that's way too complicated for kids to follow. There's enough bikini-wear on display here that it prompted one tyke at my screening to call
Jack Nicholson plays the therapist from hell to Ad out, "Oh, my gosh!" When I was his age we were treated to such family-friendly classics as Home Alone and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. But today, kid flicks have fully embraced the overly violent world of monster-mayhem cartoon television.
Anger Management (not reviewed)
Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson team up for an eclectic screen experiment in which Sandler plays the straight man and Nicholson the out-of-control egomaniac. After an airplane incident lands him in court, mild businessman Dave Buznik (Sandler) is ordered to attend anger management sessions conducted by Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson), an eccentric therapist who employs tite- $ \frac{1}{2} $ -tite methods for soothing his volatile patients. When Buddy moves into his apartment, Dave must decide whether to retreat into his shell or finally stand up for himself.
There be controversy about whether Bringing Down the House, with Steve Martin as the Stuffy White Guy and Queen Latifah as the Loudmouthed Black Chick, reinforces racist stereotypes. But few can deny that the silver-haired prig and the brassy babe are a unique comic alloy.
Bringing Down the House Grade: B
—KRT Campus
Chicago Grade: Bam Sandler's mild-mannered businessman in the be the Bob Fosse Broadway hit, but after Chicago is over you may wonder what all the fuss was about. Director Rob Marshall's carbon-copy theatricality ensures you'll have a good time, but for less style over substance, see Björk in the daring Dancer in the Dark.
Everybody sings and dances just swell in this Academy Award-nominated take on
Dreamcatcher
Grade: B-
Four telepathic friends enter the snowy New England woods for a weekend hunting expedition, only to be hunted themselves by little green men. At the heart of this Stephen King story is one of the more intriguing ideas about alien invasions ever where interplanetary monsters draw upon dreams and hide behind the friendlyneighbors imaginings of such movies as Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In King's book, this concept was overwhelmed by a seemingly endless race against time, and Dreamcatcher's director, Lawrence Kasdan, possesses no other ambition than to film it faithfully. Some of the acting — especially by Damian Lewis as a shape-shifting alien with a James Bond accent — is fun. But the demands of big budget sci-fi - creatures and special effects - quickly take over the picture.
Old School Grade: B+
A mile-a-minute tummy-tickler, Old School follows the travails of three 30ish friends unwilling to leave behind the glory of their collegiate yesteryear. A movie that spoofs the Greek experience has the artistic license to be rowdy, bawdy and completely lacking in moral fiber. The director, Todd
Phillips, plays by those rules while also giving the film an exquisite sixth sense for the kitsch 1980s nostalgia most yuppies just can't escape. And as a newlywed streaking his way to a quick divorce, Ferrell goes Farley in a comedy that's savvy enough to give him free rein.
Tears of the Sun
Grade: C-
A Nigerian war film about genocide and American intervention, Tears of the Sun plays like Black Hawk Down minus the wall-to-wall slam-bang action of that previous film, leaving only the sketched-in human relationships to fill up a two-hour running time. Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) strives for a more contemplative war film a la The Thin Red Line, but the script has so much ground to cover that familiar faces like Isaiah Washington and Donnie Wahlberg barely register. Only the cinematographer, Mauro Fiore, seems to realize this is a movie designed to engage an audience, and he enthralls with striking tropical landscapes. Bruce Willis leads this solemn enterprise, a movie that undercuts his back-to-back M. Night Shyamalan triumphs, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable.
View From the Top Grade: D+ (Ends today)
According to Miramax topper Harvey Weinstein, his studio paid Gwyneth Paltrow $10 million to star in the flight-attendant romantic comedy View From the Top. And it appears that Miramax spent all of $10 for everything else.
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-KRT Campus